They were the last two humans on earth. All the others had left when the sky finally cracked like a crystal bowl and fell. It littered the ground with icy-blue fragments and sharp stars, and one had to be careful where one walked.

The old woman sat in the house of her family, the roof fallen in around her chair. Mushrooms shelved the timbers, and morning glories concealed rusty nails. She drank water for her tea, and chewed on roots.

These days the heavens were full of eyes, and it was always night when they slept, which they never did all at once. Other times they watched, and were silent.

The young boy picked his way carefully through open fields, through leafless woods where sky still lodged in scarred limbs and the trees bled amber. There were no humans, but there were other things: their babies slept under stones & in hollow holes. In the distance he saw the house crowning the hill.

When she saw him among the stones, strong & not yet grown, covered in cuts, she began to laugh: clear and cold and glistening in the twilight. As she stood to greet him, he saw her first as a flower: he stepped on a fallen ray and startled. They began to run.

When she caught him at last, panting high and wide-eyed, they both were bloody, and her long fingers flensed the firm skin of his flanks. He did not not fight but felt her, and they fucked among the stars. Her hips were hard against his; hungry, he bit at her teat as if he’d never had teeth.

They were the last people on earth. All their children after them had wings, & were called gods, & their blood was gold.